Archive for the 'Kevin Ding' Tag Under 'Lakers' Category

INDIANAPOLIS -- We squeezed in a spot for "The Dan Patrick Show" on Thursday morning to discuss Kobe Bryant's ankle sprain and the Lakers' immediate future in the minutes before my flight took off from Atlanta to Indianapolis.

Check out the audio and video here. I'm glad I didn't have to tell Dan that I was going to listen to a flight attendant making me get off the phone instead of him.

The Lakers won't have a full team practice Thursday in Indianapolis, so there will be no clear Bryant injury update. Bryant tweeted about sleeping only one hour while doing his usual maniacal recovery work, watching three movies.

I said on the show that it'd be tough for Bryant to play Friday night against the Pacers, even if everyone just assumes he will play through everything, because as much as he is single-minded about not missing games or trying to beat medical projections for his returns, he will sit if playing will exacerbate or prevent healing in an injury.

Lakers center Dwight Howard decided not to play Sunday in Detroit with lingering pain in his right shoulder, and he wasn't sure he'd return Tuesday in Brooklyn either.

"It feels a little bit better, but still sore," Howard said Sunday. "Certain movements hurt, and I don't want to go there in any pain or go out there thinking about it too much."

Howard aggravated the torn labrum Wednesday in Phoenix. It wasn't the first time, and the pain fades after each aggravation, but Howard remains leery of another incident.

"It's still not there yet," he said. "I'm not going to try to rush myself back and have the possibility of hurting it again. There's no need for that."

Howard had a platelet-rich plasma injection into the shoulder Saturday. That treatment isn't expected to provide immediate relief, but Howard's shoulder has naturally felt better in days after each aggravation. The tear isn't going to go away whether he takes a game, a week or the rest of the season off, as I detailed in my column Saturday about how the injury could be a positive for Howard -- particularly in earning respect from Kobe Bryant, who played through a labrum tear in the 2003 NBA playoffs.

There's plenty of heat and speculation -- and plenty for Mike D'Antoni to hash out as far as better utilizing his players, including 2013 free agent Dwight Howard -- but I was told Thursday the Lakers are not considering a buyout or firing of D'Antoni as head coach.

The Lakers signed D'Antoni to a three-year contract to replace Mike Brown, who was fired Nov. 9.

D'Antoni is 12-20 as Lakers head coach. With the Lakers' Jan. 15 victory over Milwaukee, D'Antoni got the 400th career victory of his NBA career -- the 42nd in NBA history to do so, 34 of them with winning records, like D'Antoni.

But D'Antoni hasn't won a game since then. The Lakers' next chance is Friday night, when they begin a three-game homestand against Utah, Oklahoma City and New Orleans.

The Lakers' coach is finally listening to that reflex, no matter the hurt feelings of the player whose arrival lifted the Lakers to NBA titles in 2009 and '10.

Pau Gasol is being removed as Lakers' starting power forward in favor of Earl Clark, and not on a temporary basis, D'Antoni said before the 17-23 Lakers played in Chicago on Monday night.

"We just have to do that," D'Antoni said.

Said Gasol after he didn't start and the Lakers dropped to 17-24: "I'm not excited about it. ... But right now I'm more worried about us as a team and us struggling, and it'd be selfish of me to talk about something I feel in particular."

The Lakers are 15-18. They've got their work cut out for them to keep it from getting shockingly worse.

Lakers center Dwight Howard was diagnosed Monday with a torn labrum in his right shoulder and is out indefinitely, set to be re-evaluated in a week. His injury is not severe enough to necessitate surgery to repair the tear, which is the process that usually forces athletes to be sidelined for months, not a week. Howard said after the Lakers' loss to Denver on Sunday night that the pain in his shoulder from aggravating his strained right shoulder in the game was not as bad as when he hurt it Friday night vs. the Clippers.

Lakers power forward Pau Gasol is also out indefinitely with a concussion from a blow to the face by Denver's JaVale McGee with 1:05 to play in that game. And the primary backup for Howard and Gasol, Jordan Hill injured his right hip in the game and will miss at least the upcoming trip to play Houston on Tuesday and San Antonio on Wednesday -- likely meaning rookie Robert Sacre starts at center but forwards Metta World Peace, Antawn Jamison, Devin Ebanks and Earl Clark will get plenty of action in a small lineup.

Lakers center Dwight Howard was fined $35,000 by the NBA on Thursday for his flagrant foul to the face of Denver's Kenneth Faried on Wednesday night.

Howard was not suspended after the league's video review of the play, but it was deemed severe enough to tack on the extra fine. The ruling of Howard's foul being a type-two flagrant -- for excessive contact -- was upheld; the referees had assessed it that way after a sideline review of the play after it happened, prompting Howard's automatic ejection from the Lakers' loss.

Howard's performance in the game was graded negatively after the game by Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni, and Faried said in my column critical of Howard's efforts this season that he was "getting in his head" with regard to Howard from grabbing so many more rebounds than Howard in the game.

Steve Nash's left leg is not expected to be ready to return to Lakers practice Monday, when Pau Gasol is planning to come back for a short but full workout after his bout with knee tendinitis. The Lakers likely won't work for much more than an hour in advance of their game Tuesday vs. Charlotte, Gasol's likely return game.

Nash had been pointing to the coming week for his return to practice from a leg fracture, but he is still having some pain because of a nerve that has been slow to heal.

As I noted in my column Saturday about it being time for Lakers fans to get excited (again) about Nash playing for their team, Nash has been dealing with the nerve problem for the past month as much as anything regarding the healing.

I sat down with Mike Trudell of Lakers.com for a big-picture podcast about the Lakers' tumultuous season and specifically the recent Dwight Howard-Kobe Bryant argument that I delved into in my latest column.